Privacy policy?

[ku71]

Is there a privacy policy for SageTV? Specifically, is there any information sent from the SageTV product to any location on the internet?

Thanks
Martin

[SHS]

No but do you do need keep your guide up to data and need keep your PC in sync with time thing that about all far I know of.

[Mark Lamutt]

Yup, that's it. Your SageTV computer connects to the SageTV guide server to request guide information and current system time. No other data is transferred between you and anyone else. There's no one watching what you record or watch like there is with the Tivos.

[dkardatzke]

You can read the full privacy policy here: http://www.sage.tv/privacy.html

[joe123]

Originally Posted by dkardatzke

You can read the full privacy policy here: http://www.sage.tv/privacy.html

Reading the SageTV Privacy Policy and with respect to the following policy statement:

"We also receive technical information every time a Visitor or User views our Web site or accesses our servers via the SageTV service within the SageTV application."

This sure sounds to me (correct me if I am wrong) that your SageTV server running on your PC can send data or "technical data" (which can mean anthything) back to mother ship Sage head quarters from your computer.

Can someone please explain exactly WHAT is being sent back to SageTV head quarters when I run SageTV software on my PC?

The "Technical Data" being sent back to Sage head quarters can be anything, like information which can ID you (Privacy issues). Again, please correct me if I am wrong.

[nielm]

Joe, the information is listed in the lines below your quoted text...

An IP address can be used to ID you... but is necessary for any internet communication...

[joe123]

Originally Posted by nielm

Joe, the information is listed in the lines below your quoted text...

An IP address can be used to ID you... but is necessary for any internet communication...

Aside from the obvious! Yes, my IP address, what web browser I am using, verision, etc, can be sent back.

My IP address cannot ID me. It only ID's my home at best, not me.

If some of the Technical data being sent back includes license information, then that can be traced to a name, or who ever bought the software (ie, privacy issues).

[PGPfan]

No disrespect intended here, but what is the big deal? Jeff/Dan and the rest of the Sage team have shown time and time again that they are 'in it' for our best interest. There are MANY ways that they could be profiting from what they've created that are less than ethical. Microsoft does that all the time, as does TIVO, etc. The Sage guys have NEVER done anything like that.

Please consider giving them the benefit of doubt and just enjoy Sage. I guarantee you that should some personally identifiable info be reported to the 'mother ship' and used in a suspicious manner, the forum would light up like a pinball machine.

-PGPfan

[joe123]

Originally Posted by PGPfan

No disrespect intended here, but what is the big deal? Jeff/Dan and the rest of the Sage team have shown time and time again that they are 'in it' for our best interest. There are MANY ways that they could be profiting from what they've created that are less than ethical. Microsoft does that all the time, as does TIVO, etc. The Sage guys have NEVER done anything like that.

Please consider giving them the benefit of doubt and just enjoy Sage. I guarantee you that should some personally identifiable info be reported to the 'mother ship' and used in a suspicious manner, the forum would light up like a pinball machine.

-PGPfan

I am more than willing to give anyone the benefit of doubt. It is only when I see in plain written english saying something like that (like to trust us )

The text of the Policy pretty much says that they can send personal information up to Sage head quarters. If this is not the case, they can come out and say so, otherwise, they can stay quite.

Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

[PGPfan]

Hi Joe,

I think that this is really kind of pointless. Meaning, any software that is connecting to the internet for any reason 'can' send personal data. That's life on the internet. If you go through the trouble of doing packet sniffing, etc. and learn that there is some identifiable info, but doesn't get used...then what? Or you spend a lot of time doing packet sniffing and learn that they send the info the already commented about.

If Sage comes on and replies..."We don't collect personal information..yada, yada.." then you have to ask yourself 'Do I believe them?'.

This is why I say just give them the benefit of doubt and enjoy Sage. Sure, they 'can' collect data, much like they 'can' charge for upgrades, 'can' charge for guide data, etc. But they haven't. I really think it's pointless to worry about it in the context of Sage.

-PGPfan

[blade]

Originally Posted by joe123

I am more than willing to give anyone the benefit of doubt. It is only when I see in plain written english saying something like that (like to trust us )

The text of the Policy pretty much says that they can send personal information up to Sage head quarters. If this is not the case, they can come out and say so, otherwise, they can stay quite.

Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

Typical post for you. Once again if you don't trust the company and think they're being shady or untrustworthy, which you've said quite a few times in multiple threads, simply don't use their product. I guess I don't understand your need to constantly call into question Sage's integrity as a company.

I trust Sage as much as any other company and will continue to do so until they actually do something to lose that trust.

I guess you don't realize that almost all websites gather information about their visitors. Do a little reading on web metrics and you'll see that it's very common. In fact it's ignorant not to gather information.

Major corporations gather information on their customers everyday. Why do you think they have you fill out warranty cards? It's called market research, it's not to keep a record of when you purchased the product. The purpose is to gather information about the users of their products so that they can better modify the design of the product, their marketing strategy, etc.... so they can increase sales. Don't think for a second that these companies aren't sharing/selling that information. Most companies are going to have some amount of information about their users. The question is how they use it.

[joe123]

I sometimes get the feelings that I may be in a cult here.

It's like everyone is very nice with smiles so long as you follow the "plan".

Here, drink this Punch and don't ask what it contains and don't forget to lie down immediately after you take the punch.

Again, I am SIMPLY going by what the written SageTV privacy policy states and I am asking a legit and honest quetion.

[jominor]

Originally Posted by joe123

I sometimes get the feelings that I may be in a cult here.

It's like everyone is very nice with smiles so long as you follow the "plan".

Here, drink this Punch and don't ask what it contains and don't forget to lie down immediately after you take the punch.

Again, I am SIMPLY going by what the written SageTV privacy policy states and I am asking a legit and honest quetion.

That's helpful. The fact of the matter is that if you connect to stuff, you are being tracked. If you are using a debit card, you are being tracked. I use a metro card so I can swipe my way onto the train every day. Guess what? I'm being tracked.
Ditto with cell phones and email.

When I don't want to be tracked, I use cash, no email, and talk face to face.
No cult, just reality.

[blade]

Originally Posted by joe123

I sometimes get the feelings that I may be in a cult here.

It's like everyone is very nice with smiles so long as you follow the "plan".

Here, drink this Punch and don't ask what it contains and don't forget to lie down immediately after you take the punch.

Again, I am SIMPLY going by what the written SageTV privacy policy states and I am asking a legit and honest quetion.

Others aren't so quick to go bananas over the least little thing because they take the time to look into an issue before making accusations. You read the privacy policy and then immediately assumed Sage was doing something shady. If you'd bother to read the policy of other products and services you use you'd see what Sage does isn't any different than what every other company does. That is if the other companies are honest enough to actually tell you what information they collect and what it's used for. This is the sort of thing you learn in introductory business courses.

[Menehune]

I think you may be talking about apples and oranges here, joe123.

The way I read the privacy policy on the sage site is that visitors to the website can be tracked by cookies and via a user's IP address. The referring IP is recorded by every web server on the web as a part of it's normal operation because it needs to know where to send the data a user requests. That allows Sage to record which "house" (computer) the data goes to.

How do you log onto the forums Joe123? Manually or did you click the "remember me" checkbox? If you clicked the checkbox, the forum software saves the forum user name (which is linked to personally identifiable infomation-the email address where you got the forum registration email) and password. I do not know if sage searches for the forum user cookie when a visitor visits the main website, probably not. I can't think of a reason why they would want to check to see if a general website visitor is a forum member who happens to want to be automatically logged into the forum. Too much overhead on the webserver IMO to be profitable. I have 9 cookies from the sage forum saved on my machine and none from the frey website so it appears the cookie concerns is a moot point.

Sage can track also track visitors to the website when you fill in an email form. When a user fills in an email address in the "sage email newsletter" that is personally identifiable information. That (IMHO) is what the privacy statement is related to -the user emails that are collected when a visitor voluntarily signs up for the email newsletter.

In regards to the SageServer HTPC software-my server is setup to use a modem which has no password set-ie I have to manually initiate the phone call to down load the EPG. Other that the EPG phone call, my computer never makes any other "phone homes". The only data I can find in my sage properties file is a user id for the epg provider which is a "group" identifier for my location's zip code and cable service provider. Seeing as I never surf the web on my server computer and I never have entered my email in any web page on my server, there is no way for sage or the EPG provider to capture any personally identifiable information (other than my IP-which changes everytime the modem dials, and my server's name). I'm more concerned about Microsoft and MCE sticking it's fingers into all my data than I am with Frey.

So in other words-it's not a big deal and it doesn't worry me.

[joe123]

There is a HUGE difference between identifying an IP address and indentifying an individual.

Most everyone knows that using the web identifies an ip address. At best and with the involment of the ISP supplier and legal papers, the best an ip address can do is to identify a location, again not an individual.

There is a real danger here IF SageTV does capture your indentity via SageTV program should Big Brother need that info .

SageTV may be a good guy, but if someone is watching movies of "Concern" to the government and the government wants to see that information for "national" security concerns, SageTV would have to supply the info.

Yes, personal information is being recorded and shared all over the place, but there is a BIG difference knowing that userx bought a gallong of Milk verses userx watched 10 movies of "concern".

I will repeat for the sake of CLARITY: I am not concerned with WEB privacy. I am only concern with what data SageTV program sends back to Head Quarters IF ANY?

I am also not concerned with SageTV, only with the data they may or may not have which can be accessed by others.

[ToxMox]

Dude, what could you possibly be watching that you are concerned about this?

[Opus4]

If you want to resurrect a very old thread, why not resurrect another one that has comments that say they don't track any usage information. Of course, that was mentioned earlier in this thread too. Your viewing history is in wiz.bin & that is not transmitted to SageTV. (Oh, that's funny... both of these threads were started by the same person.) If the government really wanted to know what you are viewing, they could get a warrant, take your computer, and check out the viewing history.

BTW: the privacy policy page also has an email that you can use to contact SageTV regarding this subject.

Is the license used at all as part of retrieving the EPG listings? I don't know, since I'm not involved in work on that. But, for argument's sake, if it happens to be part of it... well, by connecting to their server to download EPG data, you _are_ using a service they provide to users of their software, so I don't see why they woudn't be allowed to use it to make sure the data really is going out to a SageTV product. SageTV has to pay for the EPG data that they provide to you. (Note: that is not an official comment, since I don't make any policy decisions for SageTV.)

... and I can't resist...

Originally Posted by ToxMox

Dude, what could you possibly be watching that you are concerned about this?

hmmm...

Originally Posted by joe123

Nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide.

- Andy

[domc]

<<<"We also receive technical information every time a Visitor or User views our Web site or accesses our servers via the SageTV service within the SageTV application." >>>

This is so if sagetv ever gets ask from the FBI or the goverment for info, they have to hand it over.

[blade]

If you're really concerned about your privacy, you should get one of these. They're pretty inexpensive and I hear they work quite well.